[In truth, Viktor is so devastated by this that he's sorely tempted. Hilda has talked him down from dismantling the automaton, and he knows that he doesn't have the conviction to destroy everything he worked for, but...it is tempting, in the sense that it would be one way to make things right.

He'd just have to resign himself to never building anything again, and they both know he can't do that.]

No. [That much he can admit.] I don't know what to do. I'm not a soldier.

[Even the thought of enacting violence in return is intolerable. But perhaps it will just take some creative thought. It's another moment, before he speaks again.]

I've been considering some kind of...pulse, that would disrupt new magic. That we could deploy, in a worst-case scenario.